Thursday, October 18, 2012

A Guest Post from Derek: Light Always Wins

I've been asking Derek for years to do a guest post on my blog. And he has finally complied to my request. So here it is, Derek's blogging debut!

Light always Wins!

Anne and I had the pleasure of going to the Power and Love
Conference last week and got to hear a few amazing speakers (Dan Mohler, Todd
White, Bob Hazlett)! After having a few days to reflect and think about what I
have learned, I thought I’d share it with you.
So here I go…

Life is hard. Circumstances, family dynamics, broken
friendships, health issues, work struggles and yes even death swirl around us
like a Texas dust twister. Some days it may feel as though you have traveled across
the unforgivable terrain of a barren desert barely holding on to survive. You
might feel tired, beaten up, mistreated, and too tired to love or give
anymore. Why did God have to make life
so hard?

This is what I learned this past week…I realized the structure
of my question (Why did God make life hard for me?) was what had been making
life so hard…I had been blaming God for why life is hard. God wasn’t making
life hard…I was. I was letting the circumstances of my life determine how I
felt. If life was good it was easy to thank God. When life got tough it was
hard to be thankful for much of anything. It was like when God didn’t answer my
prayers I just kept my hands in my pockets on Sunday Morning worship because I
didn’t have anything to praise.

In a nut shell I was letting the circumstances of my life
become the idols and gods I served because they impacted me greater than God
himself. What a selfish mess I am! This week at the Power and Love conference
these truths were spoken to me from the Holy Spirit Himself:

Life and circumstances
will always be tough. You need to Embrace Me (Jesus!) Let the Light in and let
the darkness out. Otherwise you will be praying the same prayers the next
week…just about different problems.

The Gospel is not
about God taking care of you, it’s about God transforming you!

You were never made
for you! You were made for God!

Stop giving your flesh
a voice, give the Spirit the platform to transform your life.

Life is not about
Providing, Provision, and Prosperity – it’s about Transformation!

You are a new
creation. The old is GONE! The new has COME! Embrace your new life!

-----Have I lost any
one yet?------Cause this is just the beginning!

You must become the
Word – stop trying to apply it.

Why do you find
yourself offended by others?! You died to yourself! Derek – A dead person cannot
be offended. Go try it. Go to a graveyard and try to offend someone there. It
is impossible! Therefore, because you denied yourself stop feeling sorry for
yourself and turn your focus to Christ!

Don’t let life eat
your lunch! Let Love (Jesus) be the Food you eat and feed it to others!

Do not yield to your
feelings. You don’t have to feel ok! You already are!

You don’t need
deliverance; you have already been delivered!

Then God really
poured on the Truth….

Don’t sell cheap! You
have been bought very costly!

You don’t have issues,
circumstances, bad days….YOU HAVE JESUS!

What you fix your eyes
on you will become! The eye is the lamp of your body!

If you are thinking
wow…what Truth…What I shared with you thus far is only 1 of 6 talks I heard!

You see what they preached to me last week was Jesus.They did not preach to me something I
did not have, they just gave me access to what I already had! They taught me to
be intentional with my time, with God, and with others. They taught me to seek
the Spirit throughout my day. They taught me to seek out others to pray for and
lay hands on. I learned from multiple
testimonies (some that happened that very week) that Healing and Miracles isn’t
just something that happened 2000 years ago, it still happens this very day
because we have the same Holy Spirit that Jesus’ Disciples had! Amen!

I left last week changed. I see things differently. I no
longer see God or others from a worldly point of view (Read 2 Corthians 5:16-21).
You see, God makes beautiful things. He has already
made beautiful things out of us. We don't have to wait for God to make us
beautiful, he already has! That is the Gospel. And that is what we get to share
with others! We get to tell them they are beautiful! And I am so excited to
spend the rest of my life sharing my life and the Gospel with others and tell
them that they are beautiful!

1
Thes. 2:8,19-20 – “We loved you so much that we delighted to share with you not
only the gospel of God, but our lives as well, because you have become so dear
to us. For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in
the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed you are our
glory and joy!

You see guys I have been filled with
the Light. I no longer live but it is Jesus inside of me. I have been spending
so much of my life trying to fix things I just needed to let die. For so long I
have tried to control my selfishness. This was so hard! Why was this so hard – It
was because God didn’t create me to be selfish……..Dagger!

Therefore, life wasn’t intended to
be hard. It became hard at the Fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden. At the
point we became broken, bruised, damaged and a damned people. The Good news is
that when Jesus died for us he took on all of that brokenness, hurt, and sin
and has reconciled us back to God. We don’t have to wait to clean up our life
before we can encounter God; God has already restored us! We just need to
accept and believe in his restoration, because it is then and only then life
stops being hard and becomes life to the full (John 10:10)! You see Light
always beats Darkness. So let’s let God’s light shine on us and lets absorb His
rays! Let us be the Salt and Light of the world! For Light always wins!

1 comment:

Derek & Anne! I am a little behind on my blog reading and just now read this. I SO, SO, SO needed to hear this! Thank you so much for sharing what you learned and were reminded of at the conference. Thank you so much! I miss you both a lot!